Down Here

by Andrew Vachss

  Wolfe took a hit off her cigarette, gray gunfighter’s eyes watching me through the smoke. When I kept quiet, she picked up her own thread.

  “Molly worked his cases. Double- and triple-checked everything. Turned over every rock. He never played TV detective on the stand, never tried to out-cute the defense. But there wasn’t one jury that didn’t believe him.

  “And then the job broke his heart,” Wolfe said, her voice thick with sadness. “When they fired me, everything changed. All they wanted was stats.

  “You know what that means. Some of the ‘shaky’ cases don’t get pursued, so you never get the chance to make them solid. The last thing they needed was a cop like Molly. He went from thinking he was a soldier in a holy war to feeling like a report-writing fake.”

  “That’s when he started the heavy drinking?” I asked.

  “When he went back to it, yeah,” she said, her eyes daring me to make judgments.

  “You know he had copies of every single one of Wychek’s cases. Possible cases, I mean. Every case in which Wychek was a suspect.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “I can’t even figure out where he got all that stuff from. There never was a ‘task force’ thing, right?”

  “Right,” Wolfe said, disgustedly. “Wychek was a classic pattern-rapist, but he stayed so far off the screen that he never even got himself a press nickname. You know, a ‘Night Stalker’ kind of thing. No media pressure, no task force; simple as that. But we were working him, preparing for trial, and we grabbed every scrap we could get our hands on. After the trial, the whole package must have gone into dead storage.”

  “Still, if they ever found out he was making copies—”

  “They won’t,” she said, flatly.

  “He got other stuff, too,” I said. “The most important thing of all, in fact. Davidson told you—?”

  “That Wychek’s not in a coma anymore? And that he doesn’t want to leave the hospital? Yes.”

  “So the DA knows it wasn’t you, no matter what bullshit ‘statement’ Wychek supposedly made, am I right?”

  “How does that compute?”

  “Come on. Wychek believes you’ve got a hit squad out looking for him? No way the DA buys that. There has to be another reason for them playing along. You got anything on them?”

  “On City-Wide? Sure, there’s stuff they wouldn’t want to get out. Sexual harassment—not pressure to have sex; trading sex for promotion—stuff like that.”

  “That’s not sexual harassment,” I said. “That’s a whore and a trick.”

  “Not alw— Never mind, it’s not important. Not right now. Anything else I know—politicians’ kids getting guaranteed jobs over better-qualified applicants, special treatment for celebrity defendants, ADAs being pushed to work in re-election campaigns, how a judge gets ‘made’ in this town—everybody else knows, too.

  “Sure, I’ve made them look like the clowns they are a few times over the years. But if they went after everyone who’s done that, they’d have to frame more people than they’ve got cells.”

  “So, if the answer isn’t you, there’s only one other thing it could be,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Wychek,” I told her. “It’s not you they want. It’s him.”

  In the next hour, we held everything we knew up to the brightest light we could find—a pair of diamond-cutters, looking for the perfect place to start our work.

  But all we found were flaws.

  “What in hell could a lowlife piece of garbage like Wychek do for the DA’s Office?” I asked the empty air.

  “Maybe they do believe him?” Wolfe said, dubiously.

  “What if they did?” I put it to her. “What if they actually fucking believed you put a few rounds into that freak? They reserve the kind of protection they’re giving him for witnesses who can take down a mob boss or the head of a drug cartel. You sure you haven’t been working anything that could blow up all over them if it came out?”

  “Nothing,” Wolfe said, with an undertone of regret. “I haven’t worked a real investigation in years. You know the kind of stuff I do now.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “But you deal in information. . . .”

  “You think I didn’t go over that in my mind a thousand times since they grabbed me?” she said. “And, trust me, that was hard work. Lockup’s supposed to be good for deep thinking, but the noise level is ungodly. And it never stops. You’d need the concentration of a yoga master just to read a newspaper in there.”

  “You think your friend would do you another favor?”

  “Molly? He’d do anything,” she said, confidently.

  “Could he find out where they’re keeping Wychek?”

  “Forget it, Burke,” she snapped out at me. “What are you going to do, put on a white coat and go visit him in the hospital?”

  “I wouldn’t do anything like that,” I said, meaning it. I’d never been past the ninth grade, on paper, but I was always a great reader. And I had a working felon’s functional knowledge of the law. Slipping a little good-bye juice into that freak’s IV drip would bother me about as much as an Osama bin Laden heart attack, but it would only make Wolfe a bigger suspect.

  “Never mind,” she told me. “I don’t need any help. Sooner or later, the prosecution is going to have to answer the discovery motions. We get a TPO, that’s the end of their case.”

  “We already know the place. So you’re telling me, even if the time of occurrence turns out to be four in the morning, you’re covered, no matter what night it was.”

  “At that hour, I’d be asleep,” she said, gray eyes level.

  “That’s not an iron-clad—”

  “Not alone,” she said.

  “Someone down here, boss. Asking for you. By name.”

  “Good-looking young guy, light-brown hair, brown eyes, says he’s Terry?”

  “Bull’s-eye.”

  “Let him pass, okay? Thanks, Gateman.”

  “Damn, boy! What they feeding you at that fancy college? You must have growed half a foot since I last saw you!” the Prof greeted Terry as the kid stepped into my place.

  “Hey, Prof!” the kid said, giving the little man a hug. He shook hands with Clarence almost formally, then turned to me. “Can I get a hand with some of my stuff? Pop dropped me off, but I couldn’t carry it all up myself. The guy downstairs, the one in the wheelchair, he said it would be safe down there with him. . . .”

  “Oh, Gateman’s clue is true,” the Prof assured him. “Man can’t stand, but he can stand up, you with me?”

  “Sure, but . . .”

  “Plus, he can outdraw Billy the fucking Kid, he has to. That’s not trash, that’s cash. You underestimate the Gateman, you gonna choke on the joke, boy.”

  “I will come with you, mahn,” Clarence told Terry, realizing the Prof would maintain the debate about the absolute security of Gateman’s domain for hours rather than spend ten minutes lugging heavy equipment up the stairs.

  Terry took over one of the back rooms, and instantly drafted Clarence into assisting him. When they started talking a language the Prof and I didn’t understand, we strolled into the front room.

  “Have a smoke with me, son?”

  This was a real role reversal for the Prof. Ever since I was a kid, his idea of smoking was to smoke one of mine. The little man had hands faster than a cobra on crystal meth—he could usually get to my own shirt pocket before I could, even though he always gave me the first move.

  But ever since I was shot, I haven’t really smoked. It’s not religious, and it’s not about health. Cigarettes just don’t taste like they used to. A lot of things don’t.

  I still always carry a pack or two, and I’ll have one once in a while. Sometimes, it’s to remind people that it’s really me. The Burke they knew always smoked, and, with the new face, I’d had to work hard at convincing some people when I’d first come back. Sometimes, it’s misdirection. Like the way I drink. I order a shot of vodka wi
th ice water on the side, and swallow the water, leaving just the ice cubes. Then I dump the vodka into the water glass, and let it melt out. When the bartender brings me a refill, the money I let ride on the counter automatically brings me fresh water, too.

  Now, sometimes when I’m with an old friend, it just feels . . . companionable to share a smoke. A cigarette tastes pretty good then.

  I took the Prof’s pack of Kools, still the favorite behind the Walls, and nodded approvingly at the lack of a New York tax stamp. I fired one up, handed him the still-burning wooden match so he could light his own.

  As if the Kool brought back old memories, the Prof leaned way back in his wooden chair, balancing on its two rear legs, and said, “You know, back in the day, it never would have gotten this far. Skinner like that one, somebody would have shanked him on the yard, just for the practice.”

  “Maybe he did it all in PC.”

  “Punk City’s the right place for a fucking freak like him. But, you know, somebody wanted him bad enough, they could do him in there. Remember when Wesley—”

  “Yeah.”

  “Unless he was a real badass, maybe?” the Prof mused. “Big enough to run a wing by himself.”

  “Wolfe says he’s about five-eight, a hundred and forty pounds, and flabby at that. ‘A chinless, beady-eyed little weasel-faced punk,’ I think she called him.”

  “My girl probably nailed how he look, but that don’t say nothing about how he cook,” the Prof said, solemnly. “She don’t know the show, Schoolboy. Not like we do. We both done time with guys, look like they couldn’t break glass, but bad enough to make a gorilla kiss their ass, right?”

  I nodded. It was true. There are some men who can turn your spine to water with a look. But I had seen those same men drop their eyes whenever Wesley came down the corridor.

  “You gave me an idea, though, Prof. A place to get started. Be right back.”

  Terry and Clarence were meshing like Formula One gears, paper flying from the stacked cartons to a long table. A giant scanner rested on its surface, cable-linked to a laptop computer with all kinds of wires running out of its back.

  “You guys run across anything about Wychek’s prison record?” I asked.

  “We have his . . . Where is that . . . Yeah!” Terry said. “Is this what you mean?”

  “No. That’ll show he was committed, but not where he landed. We know he went Upstate somewhere, but not which institution. That’s what we’re looking for.”

  “If it is in here, we will find it, mahn,” Clarence promised.

  “There’s an easier way,” Terry said. “New York State’s got a Web site for it. ‘Inmate Lookup Service,’ or something like that. All we need is a guy’s name and we can get his prison record.”

  “You mean his whole rap sheet?” I asked.

  “No, no, I mean, his . . . ‘institutional status,’ I think they call it. Where he’s being kept, what his sentence is, when he sees the parole board . . .”

  “But Wychek’s out,” I reminded him.

  “Sure. They’ll show him as ‘discharged.’ But they’ll still have the place he was discharged from, see?”

  “Damn.”

  “Sure. We just need a phone line. A landline,” he said, quickly, before I could offer him one of my cells.

  “Not up here, kid.”

  “What about the man downstairs?”

  “Gateman? Sure, he’s wired up. But won’t you need—?”

  “This is enough,” Terry said, holding up a laptop and some cords. “I’ll tell him you said it was okay, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Come on,” Terry said to Clarence. The two of them took off, Wally and the Beaver, on an adventure.

  “It was just like Terry said, mahn,” Clarence exclaimed, deeply impressed. “Only took maybe fifteen minutes and we got all

  the—”

  “It would have taken a lot less than that if your friend downstairs had anything but a molasses dial-up,” Terry cut in. “I’m not nuts about the DSL they’ve got around here, but—”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Well, when I’m ready for stuff like that, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “I am ready, mahn,” Clarence announced. “There is so much . . . value in it. Tell Burke and my father how you knew there was this place to find information about prisoners,” he said to Terry.

  “It’s not such a . . .”

  “Come on with it,” the Prof urged him. “If my son says it’s fun, I got to know how it’s done.”

  “Well,” Terry said, sitting down, “there was this girl. At school.” He saw me exchanging looks with the Prof, said, “Not my girl. I wasn’t . . . interested in her like that. She was . . . my friend. Anyway, Tatrine’s very socially active. Mostly green stuff, but she never saw a cause she didn’t like.

  “She met this guy at a teach-in she went to. It was all about prison conditions. This guy, he told her that he was an ex-con, right up front. Tatrine, she treated it like it was a credential. . . .”

  Terry caught himself, turning red as he realized who he was talking to. And where his mother had spent some of her youth. “I didn’t mean it . . . I didn’t mean it was a . . . bad thing, all by itself. Just . . . what you always say, Prof.”

  “Only thing that’s true is what you do,” the Prof acknowledged. “The Walls don’t make the calls.”

  “Right. So, anyway, Tatrine was getting all caught up in this guy. I mean, quoting him, like he was an oracle or something. It made me nervous. So I asked her, just casual one day, what had he done time for.

  “Tatrine said it had been an armed robbery. This guy—her boyfriend by then, I guess—said he had done it when he was, you ready for this, ‘pre–socially conscious.’ He had some half-baked idea that the merchant was ripping off the community, so he figured he’d do a little justice by stealing from him.

  “He told her he came to realize later that the merchant was part of a system, pre-programmed to act a certain way, and robbing him wasn’t the right thing to do. Tatrine told me this guy, he was a ‘change-agent’ now.”

  “You didn’t buy his riff, so you thought you’d take a sniff?” the Prof said, nodding.

  “It . . . I don’t know how to explain this, exactly. Mom says, sometimes, when people talk, you just know they’re wrong. Not about the facts—I mean they’re wrong people. I never heard him talk myself, but, even secondhand from Tatrine, I was . . .

  “So I poked around until I found the Web site. And I put in his name. There were actually four guys with the same name in their system, but one was still incarcerated, and the other two were white, so they couldn’t be him. His date of birth sounded about right, from the way Tatrine described him, too.

  “But it wasn’t any armed robbery he’d been sent away for. It was sodomy in the second degree. I looked that one up, too. The only way he could have been convicted of that is if the victim couldn’t consent because they were drunk, or drugged, or . . .”

  “Or a kid,” I finished for him.

  “Yeah,” he said, teeth clenched.

  “You showed this all to Tatrine?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And she didn’t believe you?”

  “Not . . . not at first. After a while, she did, I know.”

  “How?”

  “Because she came over to where I was sitting, in the library, and asked me to come outside. She told me I had been right. About her . . . about him, I mean. He admitted it. He told her the whole thing had been a pack of lies, cooked up by his little stepsister, because she resented her mother’s new husband. That was his father—they were all living together.

  “He told Tatrine he had pleaded guilty—he must have thought she knew more than she really did—because they promised him only a four-year max. And he couldn’t take a chance on a jury believing the little liar; then they might have put him away forever.

  “He said he never told people about it because they wouldn’t understand. He wasn’t ashamed of being in
prison, but he knew nobody would ever give him a chance to tell his side of the story.”

  “But Tatrine did, huh?” I said, reading his face.

  “Yeah.”

  And you wanted to tell her a few things yourself, didn’t you, kid? I thought, into the silence.

  “How did it end up?” Clarence asked. Obviously, he had only heard the beginning of the story.

  “I don’t know,” Terry said, not hearing the desolation in his own voice. “I see Tatrine around campus once in a while. But she never comes anywhere near me. And the number I had for her—it’s no good anymore.”

  Three nights later. The trackdown I was working on was taking a lot longer than I had expected. I knew that the woman I was looking for had to be somewhere in New York State. And that she owned a house, most likely in a rural area.

  But what I really needed was a phone number. When I have to approach people who knew my old face, voice contact is the smartest first move.

  Any other time, I would have gone to Wolfe’s network. But I figured they wouldn’t be operational, not with all this hanging over her.

  I couldn’t see the DA’s Office investing in full-time surveillance, and I didn’t think anyone they had was good enough to shadow Wolfe without her picking it up, anyway. But I wanted to be sure I was the first one to see whatever got turned up.

  The phone made its noise.

  “What?” I said.

  “Hi, chief!” Pepper, almost back to full bounce. “Got time to meet with an old friend?”

  “If it’s a good enough friend, I’ve always got the time.”

  “Great! She’s a very good friend, but not an old one. In fact, you just met her recently.”

  “Is there going to be anyone else there?”

  “Oh, no,” Pepper said. “You know how third wheels always spoil dates.”

  “Right. Same place?”

  “No. She’ll be at the message center—say, eleven?”

  “Do you really think that’s an appropriate spot?”